Perdition
by h'tom servioux
Summary: A dark, romantic post-colonization story inspired by Les Miserables. The x-files characters try to reconstruct their lives after the final invasion. Spoilers for movie and final episode. Not for the faint of heart.


Disclaimer: I do not own x-files or Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, which I borrow from heavily (though not so much in this chapter).   
  
Warning: As I warned in the summary, this is not for the faint of heart, definitely not an uplifting epic. So if you want something that will brighten your day, I suggest you turn back now. Run far, far away and hope that your future is nothing like the lives of the unfortunate characters in this story (if you tend to be melodramatic). Anyways, I took a lot of liberty with "resurrecting" characters that are dead in x-files canon. Simply because of the nature of this story, I needed to use several characters. Being true to the show, I manage to kill off most of the characters that were originally dead in show (and then some). There is also much romance (especially eventual MSR). Well, that is my long-winded shtick. Without further ado, my story...  
  
Perdition  
  
"In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth: no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."  
--Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan  
  
Chapter 1- Old Friends  
  
(In which the well-manicured man reflects on the state of the world)  
  
The day was drawing to a close, and the elderly man could see the sun setting through his small, single window—a myriad of colors with the dark blue of night seeping in at the corners. His day of work was almost complete—only a few perfunctory chores left—and then he would rest. He would finally sleep.  
  
He lived alone now, but remembered a time when he always had company—his friends, his family, even his enemies were better companions than this impenetrable silence, this unshakable loneliness.  
  
He only had to file a few more papers.  
  
Even with nobody to visit him, the man kept himself and his cottage neat and orderly. He had done so for years now, and it had become habit. He had always been a well-manicured man. He had finished filing and locked up his cabinet with a small key. Wearily, he marked off another day on his calendar: December 22, 2014.  
  
Had it really been only two years since the invasion? Of course, he had gone into hiding long before that. His life had been hell long before the world caught up.  
  
He looked around his cabin for a moment and chuckled mirthlessly at its drab ugliness. It had belonged to his grandmother. When he was a child, he had loved to visit. His grandmother had made him cookies and told him fairy tales to help him sleep. That was why he had returned—just months ago. He had returned because those were the only pleasant memories he had left, the only memories that did not bring him pain. Everything else was somehow...  
  
But now the dwelling had come to represent everything that was wrong with the world. He gave it one last sweeping look and reached up to turn off the light. But before he did, he saw a file lying on the floor. He must have dropped it before he closed the filing cabinet. He leaned down and gingerly picked it up. When he opened it, his lips curled into a small sarcastic smile. Funny that he should see this person on this very day. A reminder of unfulfilled hope.  
  
The file contained a photograph of Fox W. Mulder, glaring red letter, "AWOL," were stamped over his face. The memories that the old man had tried for so long to repress surfaced once again. He had last seen the young F.B.I. agent sixteen years ago. In his car, he had met the desperate and hopeful young man. Because he had helped Mulder, the old man had had to fake his death and go into hiding. In retrospect, the man knew that he had made a mistake. If had not helped Mulder, he would still be a powerful man right now. He had worked for the syndicate, an agency that allied with the colonizing aliens. He would have been able to save his family and save himself. He would have gladly watched the world fall apart around him from a safe distance. After all, the world was full of strangers. When had he ever helped strangers?  
  
Yet how could he have possibly known that Mulder would fail? The boy had seemed so determined, so driven by his past, by the disappearance of his sister. The syndicate had even feared him. The elderly man had truly had faith that Mulder would save the world. So he gave Mulder the weak vaccine to save his pretty, little partner. Mulder had done the impossible, traveled to the ends of the earth to save his friend.  
  
The man had betrayed the syndicate and knew that his life was in grave danger. So he faked his death. He put a bomb inside his car and jumped out at the very last second. Mulder saw—or thought he saw—the man die. His plan had gone amazingly well. He had taken a plane to Cuba under a false name. He figured that nobody would ask questions, and nobody did. After all, he did not look like a man on the run from the law. He stayed in hiding for fourteen years. And then, in 2012, the final invasion began as scheduled.  
  
There was, of course, an initial panic. The aliens mainly attacked cities, not bothering to be subtle. They took large numbers of people as hosts, until they gestated and repopulated the cities. The black oil virus killed millions. Masses of people went into hiding—either underground or in the countryside, which the aliens left alone, at least for now.  
  
After about a month of chaos, however, something rather astonishing happened. Two major world leaders—the president of the United States, Frederick Stratego, and Prime Minister, Anya Picardo—had organized an underground army. It was miraculous. For the first time in history, the entire world had united against a single cause. Everyone—every man, woman, and child—was drafted. The army quickly mobilized with the frantic desperation of those who had no choice but to fight or die. So masses of people, armed with rifles, knives, torches, and other assorted weapons, stormed all the major cities. It was an incredibly effort, albeit entirely useless. The army met a mass of super soldiers, and the short-lived faith in the triumph of the human race vanished.  
  
People began to desert within a week of fighting. Mulder must have been among them. The elderly man figured that the military would have kept track of the first deserters. The world was then ruled by a violent military dictatorship. A man called Segeo Burgh had taken power, and despite the loss of life the human race had already suffered, had ordered the slaughter of all deserters as a warning to those who desired to follow suit. Stratego and Picardo had tried to stop this, but they were imprisoned and executed. Burgh was an erratic man; everyone feared him.  
  
Mulder must have given up on humanity, decided he had sacrificed too much in the hope of defeating an insurmountable enemy. Or maybe he was biding his time, organizing a battle that would truly be great. Yet, the well-manicured man was tired of waiting, tired of watching every attempted resistance end in defeat—just plain tired.  
  
It had been Segeo Burgh's idea to wage nuclear war on the aliens. He organized the systematic bombing of San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, and Moscow, cities where the aliens had taken up residence. The attacks left the alien virtually unharmed, but the effects of radiation killed all the people living near the cities. The army and government had completely collapsed by now.  
  
At this point, the elderly man had surfaced and had gone in search of his family—his daughter Jessica and her children. His pursuit led him to their old house in the outskirts of London. He had hoped to somehow bring them to New Mexico, where he knew they would be safe.  
  
When he entered the house, he had first seen Jessica and her two sons dead, their cadavers mutilated by the effects of radiation. He recalled that he had scuttled around the house searching for Jessica's only daughter, Margaret. When he entered the living room, a small hand was propped over the edge of the couch. He had run towards it and gasped as the hand shook a little. Although she could have not possibly recognized her grandfather (she had only been a toddler when he last saw her), she smiled wearily at him. He saw that she had lost most of her teeth, and her hair had fallen out in sweaty clumps. The elderly man choked a sob and wrapped his arms around her. She was delirious, and it was only a matter of hours before she was dead. That night he had sobbed openly into her lifeless shoulders, cried for the first time in years. And then, he had drawn a shaky breath and gone on his way. He needed to find a place where he would be unharmed by radiation and that was how he had ended up at his grandmothers house.   
  
Around him, the world was thrown into a dark age. Schools and hospitals were institutions of the past. Children grew up without formal education. Moreover, people began dying of streptococcus throat and tetanus and tuberculosis and other diseases that had been treatable in the late twentieth century. In general, women had a hard time. Men who had lost power after the invasion looked to control anyone and anything they could. Women were often forced to seek the protection of men. Prostitution became commonplace.  
  
There was no law enforcement, so crime flourished. Gangs of neo- Vikings roamed the countryside, raping and pillaging. An underground black market also developed. People traded weapons, antibiotics, books, and other merchandise that had become rare with the age. Electricity was abandoned in favor of fire. There were no practical means of transportation except for a crude railway system.  
  
The elderly man stared in space for a moment, then his eyes flickered as if he had made a decision. He went to his closet in search of a rope. Watching himself in the mirror, the well-manicured man fastened one end of the rope around his neck and the other end to an overhead light fixture. He was dressed formally in a suit and tie. He stood on a chair and slowly counted to five.  
  
One...Two...  
  
It was not as if he had anything or anyone to live for.  
  
Three...Four...  
  
After all, there really was no point.  
  
Five...  
  
The fall failed to break his neck, so his body convulsed for a few minutes until his head finally fell to his shoulders, his eyes unmoving and blood shot, his limbs sagging a little. His clothing was, for the most part, still pristine.  
  
His tie, however, hung loosely around his neck—for the first time in his life, out of place.  
  
I hope you enjoyed. Comments? Criticism? Questions? Please Review! 


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